1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a headrest for use with seats in vehicles and more particularly, it relates to a headrest of such type that a headrest pad assembly provided with headrest stays is covered by a surface skin material.
2. Prior Art
Seats for use in vehicles are bound to have headrests to protect heads of those persons who are in vehicles at the time when their vehicles are dashed from behind or damaged by some accident like this while driving. Some of the headrests are made integral to their seat backs as a unit, but most of them are of the type that they have stays for enabling them to be detached from their seat backs so as to meet physical needs of persons who sit on their seats. FIG. 1 shows the conventional headrest of this type.
This headrest 1 comprises a headrest frame 2 made of hard material such as metal, headrest stays 3 fixed to the headrest frame 2, a pad material 4 enclosing the headrest frame 3, and a surface skin material 5 covering the pad material 4. The surface skin material 5 is made as a bag having a slit-like opening 6 at the underside thereof. Both rims of the opening 6 are pulled in a direction S in FIG. 1 and the headrest 1 is pushed into the thus-widened opening 6, so that the surface skin material 5 can cover the pad material 4.
As shown in FIG. 2, holes 8 for allowing the headrest stays 3 to pass therethrough are provided at a rim 7 of the opening 6 and a triple-divided female fastener 9 is sewed to the surface skin material 5 along this rim 7 which has been divided into three parts by the holes 8 while a triple-divided male fastener 10 is similarly sewed to the surface skin material 5 along another rim 7', corresponding to the female fastener 9 on the opposite rim 7. When the male and female fasteners 9 and 10 are engaged with each other, the opening 6 of the surface skin material 5 is closed, leaving the stays 3 passed through the holes 8.
When the rims of the opening 6 are processed as described above, however, the width of the slit-like opening 6 opened as shown in FIG. 2 is limited by those portions of the fasteners 9 and 10 which are attached along the rims between the holes 8. As the result, the width of the opening 6 opened becomes smaller than that of the pad material 4, thereby making it difficult to push the pad material 4 into the surface skin material 5, that is, to cover the pad 4 with the surface skin 5. Further, each of the fasteners 9 and 10 is divided into three parts because of the holes 8 and this means that the number of parts to be used increases and the increased parts make it troublesome and inefficient to attach them along the rims 7. Furthermore, each of the fasteners 9 and 10 has six edges 11, as apparent from FIG. 3, and persons who try to adjust the height of their headrests in vehicles sometimes hurt their hands by these edges 11.